Tag Archives: Automated Incident Manager

The Smurfit Kappa Group plc, the corrugated packaging company, has unified its complete lone worker protection solutions across 19 UK sites with the assistance of ANT Telecom.

ANT Telecom has been working with Smurfit Kappa since 2011 and initially provided lone worker devices across five of the company’s sites to protect employees when working alone. These devices are designed to provide lone worker ‘SOS’ and ‘Man Down’ facilities in both normal and harsh environments whereby end users can raise an alert when the device’s in-built panic button has been pressed or the tilt mechanism activated.

Nigel Elias, UK HSE manager at Smurfit Kappa, said: “The well-being of all of our staff is something we take very seriously and ensuring protection for our workers, especially when they’re working alone, is paramount. ANT Telecom’s lone worker devices have helped reassure our staff of their safety and give them the confidence that, should an incident occur, an alarm is triggered.”

More recently, Smurfit Kappa wanted to enhance the lone worker solution and protect lone workers across its other sites. “We needed a way of ensuring that an alert had reached the correct response team and had been dealt with in a timely manner, with complete visibility of the alarm’s audit trail,” explained Elias.

In response, ANT Telecom presented its Automated Incident Manager, a critical alarm management platform that integrates with the hand-held lone worker devices. The solution automatically distributes the triggered alarm’s information to designated local response teams and escalates the alarm if it’s not acknowledged, thereby ensuring the incident is dealt with without delay.

Elias continued: “Alerting selected responders for each location is key for a multiple-site organisation such as ours. The hosted version of the solution was ideal due to its rapid deployment capability. The effectiveness of immediate alerts and scalability quickly prompted our decision to roll out the solution, along with lone worker Protector devices, across 19 of our sites, in turn enabling us to implement a more effective and robust lone worker process across the group.”

Elias went on to state: “Our workforce isn’t wholly comprised of lone workers. Therefore, a challenge for us was educating staff that, when they’re working on their own, they need to be protected should an incident occur. With ANT Telecom’s help and the business’ consultative approach, we’ve built awareness of lone worker safety right across the company. This is something that has helped the business immensely in terms of improving employee morale.”

To reinforce this further, ANT Telecom provided each individual site with a well-structured training initiative for how the system works. Representatives have worked closely with Smurfit Kappa’s staff and continue to monitor the solution across the myriad sites involved in order to ensure that it’s maintained and working effectively.

Klaus Allion, managing director at ANT Telecom, observed: “We’re thrilled to be working with Smurfit Kappa in building a reliable and wide-scale solution across its sites to increase the Health and Safety of lone workers. We’ve provided Smurfit Kappa with an overall solution that puts both lone workers and stakeholders’ minds at ease. Should an alarm be activated, the response time is going to be rapid.”